


The Darkest Hour

by Artemis (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV)
Genre: Angst, Childhood Trauma, First time romance, M/M, Masturbation, Slash, Victorian medical treatments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 14:53:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Artemis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watson loves Holmes, secretly and silently, but when Holmes' demons are unleashed he can keep silent no longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Darkest Hour

When Watson went back into the bedroom Holmes was curled up in a tight ball in the middle of his bed with his face to the wall. He was unnaturally still. Watson moved nearer and saw that Holmes’ arms were wrapped around his pillow.  His eyes were wide-open, all black pupil shadowed with smudges of pain.

“Holmes?” There was no reaction. He didn't even blink. Watson stood beside his bed. “I’m sorry, I should have knocked before. I did just now, but you didn’t respond and I was concerned about you.”

Holmes neither moved nor spoke. It was not the first time Watson had encountered this, albeit not under these circumstances. He knew from past experience that it would take time and patience to draw Holmes out of the abyss.  

“It’s getting cold in here,” Watson said, “according to the newspapers it’s likely to snow tonight. I’m going to build the fire up so that you don’t get a chill. You’ve been ill enough these past few days and I don’t want you taking a turn for the worse.”

Watson went over to the hearth and threw a few humps of shiny black coal into the flames. He sunk down into the old armchair next to the fireplace.  All he could see was Holmes’ expression in those few seconds before he had twisted over to face the wall, before he had backed out of the bedroom so that Holmes had time to compose himself.

He had been more amazed than shocked when he had caught Holmes with his lips tightly compressed and his right hand moving furtively, urgently under the bedcovers. It was Holmes’ reaction to being caught in the act which had stunned him.  Watson looked across the room at his friend’s bowed back. He might have expected acute embarrassment, even anger at being interrupted, but what he had seen on Holmes’ face was pure terror.

Watson had never seen such a look before, no matter what horrors they had faced in the course of their cases, and he never wanted to see it again.  He went back to Holmes and sat down again, this time on the side of his bed. There was still no response, well, he had not expected one so soon.  He might well end up sitting here until dawn, making one sided conversation before he got a single word in reply.

“Are you all right, old chap?” Watson placed his hand on Holmes shoulder, usually the touch was permitted, but Holmes flinched away. That unexpected rejection hurt more than it ought to do, more than was reasonable. Watson reminded himself of the delicacy of his friend’s mental and physical state.  “Do you want anything, some tea perhaps?  I can fetch it if you do, there’s no need to disturb Mrs Hudson at this hour. When I was in the army I used to brew –“

“Tell me!”

It was a cry of terrible anguish, one that shot a bolt of pain straight into Watson’s heart. “Oh, Holmes, whatever’s wrong? And what is it that you would have me tell you?”

Holmes shifted restlessly. “Tell me how you’re going to hurt me.”

“I’m not, I couldn’t…I couldn’t ever hurt you.”

“You’ll call it help, treatment, but it’ll hurt just the same and it’ll be worse, worse than what they did, because it’s you.” Holmes whimpered a harsh animal sound of despair. “Don’t pretend that I haven’t done anything wrong, that you’re not going to punish me. Please don’t drag it out for hours, days, until I can’t eat, can’t sleep…until I don’t even want to live any more.”

“Oh, god!” Watson reached out blindly, instinctively. He grasped Holmes’ shoulders, trying to lift him and gather him up into his arms. ” Come here, come to me, I won’t hurt you and either will anyone else. I won’t let them.” He was babbling nonsense, but Holmes suddenly rolled over and buried his face in his waistcoat. “It’s all right. It’s all right,” Watson whispered.

“No it isn’t, it’s never all right. Even this is wrong. We shouldn’t be here like this.”

“Don’t worry about what should be, just stay close to me.” Watson feared that Holmes would suddenly pull away from him, but instead he burrowed into him.  Watson rested his cheek on the top of Holmes’ head, seeking a stolen moment of comfort for himself.

“I promised…” Holmes’ voice was muffled and full of tears. “I promised the first time my nanny caught me that I’d never, ever do it again, but I did, more than once.  Mother wept and wouldn’t look at me. Father took me to see a doctor, a specialist, in Harley Street, even though he said that he couldn’t really afford the fees and that was my fault too. The doctor made me strip naked in the middle of his office and he examined me with his cold hands. Father was furious when I cried. Then the doctor told me all the nightmarish things that would happen to me if I didn’t stop.”

Watson silently damned his own profession to hell. “How old were you then?”

“Eleven.” Holmes sniffed and rubbed his hand across his face. “The doctor told my father that I was in grave danger of permanent damage to my constitution, of insanity and blindness, if my addiction to…to self-abuse wasn’t cured.  He prescribed punishments – treatments- for me.  Father was instructed to thrash me if I misbehaved in the day.  My hands were tied at night so I couldn’t touch myself and there was a device…” He clutched Watson’s sleeve. “It hurt, it hurt so much, and I was so frightened, so humiliated, everyone knew, my parents, Mycroft, even the servants.” 

“They’re not here now.” Watson kissed Holmes dark hair.  “I’m here and I…I’m here” He did not have to imagine some of the treatments inflicted upon the boy that Holmes had been. All of the ‘cures’ for self-abuse were well known in the medical profession and many of them were closer to medieval torture than to a scientific treatment. Watson felt sick.

Holmes moved so that his head rested on Watson’s shoulder. “I’ve heard that some who were punished as I was gradually came to appreciate the punishment, but I loathed it. For years afterwards I used to wake screaming from nightmares of pain and humiliation, sometimes I still do.” He reached up and brushed Watson’s cheek with his fingertips. “You’ve been crying, crying for me.” There was wonder in Holmes voice. “No one ever did that for me before. Even mother only cried because I was such a disappointment, such an odd, solitary boy, even when I wasn’t abusing myself.”

Watson hadn’t realised that he was crying and he quickly scrubbed his tears away with the back of his hand. “You’re not odd, you’re unique, my dearest Holmes.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Was that the end of it all?”

“Yes, for a time. I was too frightened to continue, but when as time passed and my body changed it became so much more difficult to resist temptation and one day I did it again. I tried to me discreet, devious even, and above all else not to do it too often.”  Holmes pressed his face into the curve of Watson’s neck and shoulder. “It was Mycroft who discovered me in the end. He threatened to tell our father and I begged, yes, I begged, him not to. Mycroft sneered at me. He said that I would end up in an insane asylum where the doctors would cut me so that I’d never be able to have a woman.” Holmes sobbed. “Only he didn’t know, no one knew that when I abused myself my thoughts were wicked and unnatural. Dear God, what would they have done to me if they had known?”

“Hush, hush, it’s all right, look at me now,” Watson said. He cupped Holmes face in his hands. “I’m the only one who knows that you desire your own sex. Don’t look so alarmed, I’m not as dense or unobservant as you believe me to be, least of all where you are concerned.  I knew long before tonight and I am neither dismayed nor repulsed.”

“You don’t hate me?” Holmes asked in a tiny voice.

“No, I love you. You are dearer than all the world to me.” Watson pressed his lips to Holmes forehead. He could feel him trembling. He felt dizzy himself, this was all moving so fast.

“You desire women,” Holmes said.

“I have always done so, but at this moment I’m certain of nothing save that my heart will always belong to you.”

“What sentimental fools we are Watson” There was just a trace of black humour in Holmes’ voice and Watson rejoiced to hear it.

“Perhaps, but I don’t care. I have loved you too long in silence to care.” He drew Holmes down into his arms and they remained like that for some time. Watson smiled when dry lips touched his neck. It felt easy and right to kiss and be kissed by Holmes. He rubbed Holmes’ back in gentle, sweeping circles.

“What is your medical opinion on this matter?” Holmes asked after a while.

“That the cure is often worse than the disease. If it be a disease at all, all the literature tell us that it is and yet my time in the army convinced me that self-abuse is almost universal. It often seemed to me that those of the men who were adversely affected or in whom it became a compulsion were suffering from some other trauma, one had lost his wife to consumption and hence his children to the workhouse, another shook with fear whenever he heard a gunshot.” Watson settled back more comfortably on the pillows. “If it redeems me at all I don’t believe that I ever prescribed anything worse than exercise and cold baths in a hot climate.”

Holmes chuckled. “You are a good man, Watson.”

“Not so good that I don’t indulge in self-abuse myself,” Watson confessed.  “It is a pleasure and a comfort to me, as it should be to you.”

“No,” Holmes shook his head. “The fear is too deeply ingrained to allow me to enjoy abusing myself.”

Watson kissed his brow. “You looked as if you were enjoying it in those brief seconds before you realised that I was there.”

“I would have despised myself afterwards and doubtless sunk into a gloom which would have lasted for days.” Holmes bit his lower lip. “I can go for months without shameful indulgence, but sometimes my resolve fails me and I cannot resist temptation. Tonight was like that, you have been so tender this past week and I felt cherished and…safe.”

“You are safe.” Watson thought for a moment, Holmes was exhausted, overwrought and still a little feverish, but tomorrow in the harsh light of day all his fears and doubts would reassert themselves, better to strike now while the iron was still hot. “Safe enough for you to finish what you started earlier.”

“No, I can’t!” The panic was back in an instant.

Holmes twisted away from him and Watson caught his thin wrists in his. “Yes, you can. I’ll build up the fire again so that you’re warm and comfortable and I can fetch you some oil so that you don’t make yourself sore. I use it myself, when I indulge.”

Holmes shuddered. His eyes were haunted. “They used to put oil of wintergreen on my private parts.”

Watson winced. “That would have burnt dreadfully.”

“It was intended to.” Holmes leant his forehead against Watson’s. “What if anyone finds out what I’ve done?”

Watson embraced him. “They won’t, I’m the only one who will ever know and I won’t be very far away, not if you don’t want me to be. Would you would like me to wait in the sitting room so that you can call me back as soon as you’ve finished?”

“It’ll be so cold out there at this hour of the night,” Holmes said. He looked up into Watson’s eyes. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to leave me.”

Watson’s mouth was suddenly very dry. “What do you want me to do? I can sit over there in the armchair facing the fire or I can stand at the window with my back to you and that way you’ll still have some privacy.”

“Would you sit beside me?” Homes asked quietly.

 “If you’re sure that’s what you want,” Watson said.  It saddened him to realise how fearful Holmes truly was and yet he could not help but feel touched by his total trust in him.  Anything else he might feel, be it embarrassment or a quickening in his own blood was irrelevant, only Holmes mattered.

 “I’m sure.” Holmes replied, not quite meeting Watson’s gaze.

 “Shall I go and get that oil for you?”

 “No, don’t go!”

 “I’m not going anywhere, not if you don’t want me to.” Watson stroked Holmes’ hair back off his forehead. The strands were soft and free of hair oil, like a whispering caress on his skin. “Would you like me to turn the lamp out?”

 “Yes, please.”

 Watson patted him on the shoulder and went to do as he was bid. It was the work of a moment to extinguish the lamp, so that the only light in the room came from the flames that burnt orange and amber in the fireplace.  Yet even in semi-darkness he was aware of the anxious eyes watching his every movement. He went over to the door and turned the key in the lock, and then he slipped it into his jacket pocket.

 “Thank you,” Holmes whispered.

 Watson smiled at him.” You’re welcome.” He sat down on the edge of the bed with his back against the bedpost. He cleared his throat. “Are you all right?”

 “I don’t know.” 

 “Make yourself comfortable and try not to fret about anything.”  Watson almost reached out to him, but he stopped himself at the last moment.  “Close your eyes and just pretend that I’m not here.”

 “That is the last thing I wish to do. You are my strength and my courage. I would not even attempt this if you were not with me.” Holmes sat up and leant forward to kiss the corner of Watson’s mouth.  “May I rest my head on your lap?”

 “Of course you may.”  It was an intimacy Watson could not bear to refuse.

 Holmes slid down in the bed until he lay with his head on Watson’s thighs.  Watson pulled the bedcovers up around his shoulders and all his resolve not to touch melted away. His right hand settled on Holmes’ shoulder and his left began to stroke Holmes’ hair gently.  Holmes sighed and Watson felt him relax.

“That’s nice,” Holmes whispered. His hand came up to cover Watson’s where it rested on his shoulder. “I could stay like this forever and to hell with the rest of it.”

 “So could I,” Watson said, “but if we lose this moment...try, my dearest, just try.”

 “And will this be a cure for all my ills, for all my terrors, assuming that I do not fail?” 

 “No,” Watson said honestly. “Not a cure, but perhaps the first step on the road to one.  I am not a magician to undo all the hurt that they did to you in a single night.”

 “But you are quite magical, dearheart.” Holmes raised Watson’s hand to his lips. “Do not think that you must abandon me to stillness and silence.”

 “I won’t.” Watson curled his other hand around the nape of Holmes’ neck.

 Even in the gloom of fire gradually falling to embers Watson saw clearly the moment when Holmes’ right hand slipped beneath the bedclothes.  He saw those covers move as Holmes settled himself and Watson could not think of a thing to say or do despite his promise.

 “This is ridiculous,” Holmes said.

 “No, it isn’t.” Watson still held Holmes’ left hand in his and he squeezed it gently. “Try to remember how it felt before all the fear and the pain, remember the pleasure you got from it then.”

 “It was so long ago. I was only a boy and alone, always alone.”

 “You’re not alone now.”

 “No, you’re here and that does make me want...” He moved again. “It was you before...I thought of you...and now you’re really here.”

 “Then do it for me.”

Watson wondered for a moment if that were too blunt a comment, but Holmes nodded and stretched out on his side.  His eyes closed and Watson saw the flutter of lashes on his cheeks. He longed to bend and kiss those closed eyelids, but he contented himself with the meandering glide of his hand over Holmes’ hair and face.  At first he couldn’t detect any movement beneath the heavy covers and only the slight quickening of Holmes’ breathing betrayed him.  

 “Watson?”

“I’m here.” He pressed a kiss to Holmes’ temple.  His only answer was a long drawn out sigh. Holmes moved restlessly and the movement of his hand became more apparent.  Watson let out his own breath with a grunt. Holmes paused for a second and then continued.  Watson rubbed his upper back. He was acutely aware of his own desire, of the warmth and weight of Holmes on his thighs, and above all of the need to keep himself in check.  He could deny his body, but not his emotions. “I love you,” he said for the second time that night.

 “Do you truly?” The words were broken and breathy.

 “Yes.”

 “Oh Watson...”

The movement was unmistakable now. Holmes squeezed his hand, relaxed his grip and squeezed again, falling into a rhythm.  Watson let his other hand rest in the small of his back.  Holmes arched his hips.  His eyes snapped open.

“I can’t!” He clung to Watson’s hand. “I can’t...they’ll know.”

Watson smoothed Holmes’ hair back from his face.  Fear and thwarted desire had set him atremble and Watson wanted to tear the people who had installed this terror in him from limb to limb. “They won’t know, how can they possibly know?”

“The sheets, if I spill on the sheets they’ll know.”

Damn. He should have thought of this, but he hadn’t and he knew that there was no point trying to convince Holmes that it didn’t matter.  Watson felt in his pocket and found a clean handkerchief.   “Here, use my handkerchief.  We can burn it afterwards, there’ll be nothing left but smoke.”

“Clever, Watson.” Holmes smiled faintly. He took a deep breath and then another.  His right hand emerged from beneath the blankets to take the handkerchief.  Holmes shifted position and Watson saw his grey eyes close again.  He squeezed Watson’s fingers and the motion under the bedcovers began once more. Apart from the rising cadence of his breathing Holmes was silent. Watson touched him gently, a feather brush of his fingertips tracing his jaw line.  Holmes kissed his palm and Watson felt the quick pulse of his breath on his skin.

“Dearest...” Watson whispered, scarcely aware that he had spoken at all.

Holmes gave a little gasp and interlaced his fingers with Watson’s, rhythmically flexing and pressing, whilst the movement under the bedclothes became faster and more erratic.

“I can’t...” He sounded agitated, frustrated and weary.

“Yes, you can,” Watson said. “You’re very nearly there, my darling.” He bent down so that his lips touched the shell of Holmes’ ear. “Just a little more and you’re going to spend your seed.”

Holmes made a noise that was half-whimper and half-sob.

It was the only sound that he made.   His grip on Watson’s hand became constant and crushing, painfully so, but Watson dare not  show any sign of discomfort in case it shattered this moment of glass and fire.  Holmes froze, perfectly still save for the rapid motion of his right hand. He convulsed once, twice, and then a third time with a long shuddering shiver.

Holmes collapsed against Watson’s knees, utterly boneless and utterly spent. 

Watson discreetly flexed his cramped fingers.  Even as he did so his other hand traced the curve of Holmes’ spine under the sweat damp nightshirt, down to where the bedclothes were bundled up around his waist and back up to the nape of his neck. He couldn’t bear not to touch him. The racing fire in his blood was laced with the fear that that Holmes would reject him now that his desire was sated and these caresses would be the last that he was ever permitted.

Holmes stirred, sighed and rolled onto his back, so that he gazed up into Watson’s face. He reached up and touched his cheek. “Thank you.”

Watson nodded, not trusting his voice and covered Holmes’ hand with his own. “You do not regret?”

“Why should I?” A shadow passed across his face. “The demons still lurk, Watson, you spoke truly when you said that a single act would not defeat them, but for tonight the victory is ours.”

“I’m glad of it,” Watson said and he was glad, so glad that he could weep.  Tears filled his eyes and he held them at bay, angry with himself for behaving like a fool.  It felt as if all his nerve endings had been scraped raw.   His throat was parched and the bedpost had laid a long furrow of pain down his back.  Above all else he was aware of the ache of frustrated, never to be satisfied, lust.

“What’s the matter?” Holmes said. The uncertainty crept back into his voice. “Do I do something amiss?”

“No, of course not.” Watson knew that a lie would be perceived instantly.  He could not deceive Holmes. “You...you excited me.” 

“But I was so inept and timorous, I didn’t imagine that anyone could find my fumbling performance arousing.” Holmes rolled over in Watson’s lap so that his eyes were on a level with Watson’s groin. “Yet now I perceive that you did find it so.”

“I can’t help it.” Watson prayed that the semi-darkness would hide the colour that flamed into his face. Another thought occurred to him. “That wasn’t why I suggested that you should pleasure yourself.”

“I know it wasn’t, after all it was I who asked you to stay with me.”  He touched Watson’s hip, rubbed his fingers over his tweed trousers where they covered the curve of the bone. “You are…much troubled?”

“How could I not be?” Watson closed his eyes. He was still acutely aware of Holmes’ hand on his hip, so near and so far from where he ached for it to be and that mouth, those red lips, closer yet. “God, I could burst!”

Holmes’ hand stilled and he was silent for a heartbeat. “Then why don’t you do as I did?”

“I…” Watson bit back the automatic refusal. When he looked down into Holmes’ face he saw that beyond the tenderness there was a challenge. Prove that you meant it, that there is truly no cause for shame or fear. Yet he could not claim, would never claim, that it was for Holmes’ sake alone that he whispered “Yes, oh, yes,” in a voice that he barely recognised as his own.

Holmes levered himself up off Watson’s lap and settled back on the rumpled pillows at his side. 

Watson hesitated. He felt awkward, uncertain that he could simply begin with Holmes’ unwavering gaze upon him.  “Can I stretch out beside you?”

“I should like that,” Holmes said.

Watson had intended to settle on the bed rather than in it, but when he stood up to take off his shoes Holmes scooted over to the far side of his bed and threw back the covers. That was an invitation Watson was not about to refuse. He discarded his jacket and waistcoat and quickly got into bed beside him.

“Shouldn’t you have removed your trousers?” Holmes sounded amused.

“I can just undo them,” Watson muttered. He fumbled with the buttons and sighed with relief when the constraint at his groin eased.

“What would you have me do?” Holmes asked.

“Put your arms around me.” Watson rested his head on Holmes’ shoulder and closed his eyes, shutting out the flicker of firelight on the ceiling.  Holmes was a solid weight pressed all along his side, scented with cologne, sweat and sex. “Oh, heavens.”  He slid his hand down, into his underclothes. It did not feel strange or unnatural to caress himself while he lay in Holmes’ embrace. It felt like the most wonderful thing in the world.

“I think,” he gasped, “that you had better give me that handkerchief.”

Holmes gave a slight laugh. “Perhaps you will fare better with it than I did, it was awkward with one hand, but I didn’t want to let go of you, not even for an instant.”

Watson grinned. He wanted to tell Holmes that he was happy that he could laugh about it, but he couldn’t pause or catch his breath long enough to do so. The handkerchief was pressed into his hand. Watson groaned. He knew that it was too late even before Holmes’ long fingers accidently ghosted over his erection.

 “You were much quicker than I,” Holmes said between yawns when they lay curled in one another’s arms.

“That is not a compliment,” Watson murmured into Holmes’ neck.

He did not remember falling asleep. Only being torn from sleep by a cry of anguish, Watson felt it reverberate through him in those first seconds of awareness.  He turned immediately to Holmes, who shivered beside him, awake now, but with the night terrors still in his eyes.

“It’s all right,” Watson said, “I’m – “

“Alive, you’re alive,” Holmes pulled him down into his arms, crushing the breath out of Watson with the power of his embrace. “Oh, thank god.”  He shook with tears and made no attempt to stifle his sobs.

Watson kissed his neck, his face and his lips. “Hush, my love, it was just a nightmare, a shadow in the dark. That’s it, hold onto me, just hold on.”

“They hurt you. They made you bleed and scream.”  Holmes clasped Watson’s face in his hands. “Are you truly unharmed?”

“Quite unharmed.” Watson kissed Holmes’ lips. “I’m all right. I really am.”

Holmes fell back onto the pillows, pulling Watson down beside him. “They hurt you,” he said again. “I pleaded with them not to, to do it to me instead, but they kept on torturing you and I just couldn’t bear it.”

“Oh, Holmes!” Watson was both touched and broken by the depth of Holmes’ agony.  “It was just a nightmare, the shade of all the cruelties you suffered. They have no power to hurt either of us now.”

“I know.” Holmes took a long unsteady breath. “I know that they are mere phantasms and that all my tormentors, save Mycroft, are long dead, but I still fear them and that shames me.”

“You have no cause for shame. It is they who should be ashamed of all the thoughtless harm they did you.”

“They would say that their intentions were good, that they meant to save me from myself.”

Watson snorted. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

“I have travelled that road. I have shuddered and wept in the darkness and thought myself abandoned by both god and humanity. ” Holmes kissed Watson’s brow and smoothed down his tousled hair.  “And now you bewilder me with declarations of love that I do not deserve and I fear that I will be the ruin of you.”

“Why should you ever be that?”

“You know why, your very tone tells me that you do.” Holmes moved Watson carefully from the comfort of his shoulder to the softness of goose down pillows.  He rolled onto his side facing him and traced the outline of this mouth with a fingertip. “My demons may only be spectres, but there are others that are very real to us now we have stepped from the praecipe and fallen together into this bed of mine.”

“I could not have wished for a better landing.”

“Then you are a fool, my Watson, such a fool. My love for you is poor compensation for all that you may suffer and all that you will surely lose.”

Watson caught Holmes’ wandering hand in his, linking their fingers together. “You did not say before that you loved me.”

“Did I not? I meant to, for I do love you, John.”

“You’ve never called me by my Christian name before either,” Watson said. It sounded strange and yet absurdly touching when Holmes said it in that cut-glass gravel voice of his.

“I have often thought of you so, on those rare occasions when I braved my demons it was always with your name on my lips, but not only then, sometimes when I have seen you in a moment of quiet contemplation or with laughter in your eyes you have been John in my heart.”

“I will be that for you always, if you wish.”

 Holmes’ smile was infinitely sad. “You cannot, you must not be John to me except behind locked doors. Even that little intimacy is denied to us where others may hear and wonder why I make free with your given name.”

“Must we really be so circumspect?” Watson asked, although he knew and hated the answer.

“We must. We must be discreet, discreet always, never betraying ourselves with a look, a word or a touch if we are to avoid the courtroom and the prison cell.”

“I think you overstate the case.” Watson rubbed Holmes’ arm and lifted his head to kiss him yet again. “Even with this new law there is little merit in the authorities bringing these things before the courts unnecessarily, after all they do not wish to give the populace ideas.”

Holmes laughed a little at that, but he quickly grew serious again. “Suppose then that we manage to avoid detection and that we are not publicly vilified for this love of ours, what then will that mean for you?” He laid his fingers across Watson’s lips before he could reply.  “I will tell you. It means that you will not marry. That you will never have an amiable little wife to parade in front of your colleagues, one who will be attentive to your every need, not just in the marriage bed, but in the warming of your slippers and the ordering of your household. It means that you will never father a child.”  Holmes twisted a strand of Watson’s hair around his index finger. “And it means something more because I cannot be other than I am, because I am jealous and selfish, it means that I will ask you to make the most unreasonable of promises and swear that you will never know a woman again.”

Watson stared up at him. “I don’t want a wife or a child and as to the other…”

“You hesitate and who can blame you? Thirty, forty years may stretch ahead if you are fortunate and if you desire a woman’s body as I do not…Forgive me, I ask too much of you, after all we have not even touched one another in passion yet.”

“It feels as if we have, as if we have always been as we are tonight, even though I know that we haven’t.” Watson nestled closer and covered Holmes’ mouth with his, flicked his tongue over his lips and felt them part instantly.  Eventually he drew back for want of air and to collect his reeling thoughts. Watson laid his head on Holmes’ chest. “I can hear your heartbeat and that is dearer to me than my life or my reputation. Then I think that I would not have you punished again for your passions and that if we were to part, I to my unwanted wife and you to your solitude, you would be safe and –“

“And that would be the cruellest punishment of all, far worse than disgrace and prison, leave me if I ask too much of you, but not because you think you must, do not shatter my heart with your good intentions trying to save me from myself.” Holmes grasped Watson’s shoulders. “Sit up and look at me. I do not wish to be saved. I wish only to love you.”

“And I you.”  Watson lowered his head to kiss Holmes’ lips. “My heart is given and I have no wish to reclaim it.”

Holmes’ nightmares returned the next night and for many nights afterwards, but every time he woke in stark terror Watson was there to soothe him back to sleep.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> At the time I wrote this I did quite a lot of research into Victorian 'cures' for masturbation. Then I left most of it out of the story because it was all just too unpleasant. I hope that it still gave a flavour of the times and that it wasn't too overly romantic.


End file.
